That one time I went to Kentucky

My goal has been to take one international trip each spring, but I could tell that 2025 was going to be a bit different, even before the year began. Issues with time, money, geopolitics, and personal life converged and I was left without a plan or a plane ticket. Then, several weeks ago, a little impulsive brainstorm blossomed: Go. To. Kentucky.

By car, the Cincinnati border is less than two hours from my house, and yet after nearly nine years in Ohio, I've never made a trek farther than The Party Source. Not with my daughters' mother, nor the four women with whom I've had (limited) relationships, nor any of my whisk(e)y buddies. So my 2025 Spring Vacation would take me to Bourbon Country.

Despite nearly three decades' worth of attempts, my palate has never fully embraced bourbon. I've always found contemporary bourbon's scope of complexity to be far narrower than Scotch whisky's (and Irish whisky's and Japanese whisky's), due to the dependence on the bourbon spirit's intensive oak extraction. In fact, I find white dog and distiller's beer to be more interesting than the resulting brown oak juice.

But I have also lost my way when it comes to American whiskies. At some point I lost interest in seeking out a better bourbon, and cringed at every new Craft creation. As of early 2025, other than Indiana's MGP 95/5 ryes, I didn't know what American whiskies actually work for my taste buds. So, I wanted to find out.

Due to the nutty internal and external life I'm navigating, the one that barely leaves me time to post on this blog, I didn't plan much of this trip. There did need to be baseball games, long walks in the woods, barbecue, and, yes, bourbon distillery tours, the normal ones that anyone else can sign up for, no special behind-the-scenes treatment.

That 9-day trip concluded last weekend. I will now attempt to recap it in less than a handful of posts, and then return to my regularly(?) scheduled(?) whisky reviews. Thank you for your patience.